MUNICH — European leaders should start to create a European army in response to Russia’s military build-up, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Saturday.
“I really believe that the time has come that the armed forces of Europe must be created,” Zelenskyy said in a speech at the Munich Security Conference. “Let’s be honest, now we can’t rule out that America might say no to Europe on issues that might threaten it.”
As the third anniversary of Russia’s all-out invasion nears on Feb. 24, Zelenskyy said Europe needed to coalesce behind a single foreign and defense policy that would show America that the bloc is serious about its own security.
Despite steep losses, Russian President Vladimir Putin is adding 150,000 troops to his armed forces, larger than most European armies, Zelenskyy said, and is opening army recruitment offices each week. “Oil prices are still high enough for him to ignore the world,” he said.
Before even that they should start to pool and align their defense industries. But if you look how that is going, then imo it becomes apparent how divided the EU still is. Germany and France keep arguing who gets to do what in their joint projects, Poland buys Korean and US equipment for a lot of their stuff, and different counties are part of different projects for the next gen planes.
But anyways even if that happens, as long as we have unanimous decision making processes, a combined army would be to slow to react due to politics. As we’ve e.g. seen with sanctions